Let's face it: the internet has us all freaked out.  It's 1439 all over again--maybe more like 1450--and this Gutenberg dude has just revolutionized the way information is disseminated and all we know for sure is that those monks who make a living doing awesome illustrated manuscripts are probably all going to be out of jobs. More...

I don't know if you heard, but on Monday, the San Francisco Giants won the World Series.  I know what you're thinking. "Holy Schmikes, he's going to post about baseball.  Again.  What is his deal?"  Or, if you're from Utah, "What is his dill."

But. Okay.  Here's the thing.  I know that it's ridiculous, to spend so much time and energy cheering for a professional sports team.  Like they care, these preposterously well-compensated, hopelessly overprivileged mesomorphs whose main skill in life involves being able to toss a ball in a hoop, run really fast with an oddly shaped inflated pigskin, or hit a small ball with a stick.To what end, this emotional investment, this misplaced passion, this obsession with arcane statistics and obscure strategies?  Dude, grow up. More...

Annette and I have this show we like to watch--the Inspector Lynley mysteries.  I gather it was popular on PBS a couple of years back, but we discovered it via Netflix.  It's about a British aristocrat-turned-detective, Inspector Lynley, and his lower class partner, Sgt. Barbara Havers. So there's all this British class system stuff, the nuances of which probably escape us. Nathaniel Parker plays Lynley, and we honestly don't like him that much, especially in the third season, when he got a new hair style that somehow made him act like a total prat, instead of just looking like one.  But we love Sharon Small, who plays Havers. More...

I just finished reading well over 100 entries to Irreantum's fiction and creative nonfiction contests, narrowing them down to a set of semifinalists over which our contest committee can wrangle.  Reading all those stories and essays can be a bit of a slog, it's true.  But it's also one of my favorite things to do as Irreantum's editor.  (In fact, I like to do it so much that I'm staying on as Irreantum's contest coordinator after stepping down as editor at the end of this year.)

One of the reasons I enjoy it is because I'm a great lover of stories---stories of both the true and made up variety---and it thrills me to see story after story after story, each one original in its own way, being made about Mormon experience.  Some of these stories are better told than others, it's true, but even the most amateur entry contains a kernel of a tale.  And the best stories?  (And there are some really good ones this year, I'm pleased to say.)  The best ones kept me glued to my computer screen, had me wiping away tears, helped me yearn or thrill or discover right along with the protagonist. More...

The recent Utah execution of Ronnie Lee Gardner via firing squad became national news, and led to inevitable editorializing pro and con the death penalty.  Because Utah is the only state that allows for firing squad executions, Utah is presented, by those who oppose the death penalty, as a particularly benighted state, and the discredited doctrine of blood atonement usually gets attention.  Blood atonement is, as Scott Card once put it, "a doctrine never taught in the Church, especially by Jedediah M. Grant."  But Gardner's execution had, for me, a personal historical context unrelated to blood atonement.  Only three Utahns have been executed via firing squad in the last 70 years.  Gardner's one; Gary Gilmore (of Executioner's Song fame) was another.  The third was a man named Donald Condit, who was executed in 1940 for murdering my grandfather. More...

So, I'm working on a Mormon-themed novel with some bad guys in it, one bad guy in particular. I know this isn't a totally new discussion, but right now I'm in the thick of the issue of realistic language. I'm at the point where sometimes I delete the F-words and sometimes I add them back in or substitute "softer" crudities. But the bottom line is that my bad guys say F-words; they just do. And at least one of these guys is a very important point-of-view character who I just don't feel I can sanitize, and plus his use of profanity helps differentiate him from the other main POV character, who is of the same age, gender, and similar background. More...

In baseball, it's possible for a pitcher to achieve perfection.  A perfect game is one in which no batters are allowed to reach base, either via error, walk, or basehit. Every single batter is retired: twenty seven up and twenty seven down.  Perfect games are very rare at the major league level, with only twenty since major league baseball began its record-keeping.  And yet, there have been, improbably, three so far this season.  (Bear with me on this: a relevance to Mormon literature may yet emerge.)

The first took place on May 9, pitched by Oakland A's lefthander, Dallas Braden.  When scouts talk about young pitchers, they differentiate between 'stuff' and 'command.'  'Stuff' refers to raw talent--how fast can this young man throw the ball, with what kind of diabolical movement.  'Command' refers to control.  A pitcher with good stuff and poor command may be able to throw the ball 98 miles per hour, but with little idea where it's going, for example. Dallas Braden epitomizes a pitcher with mediocre stuff but superior command.  His fastball tops out at 85 mph, but it  goes exactly where he wants it to go, and he changes speeds admirably.  He's otherwise known as a fun-loving and admirable young man--still trying to solidify his position as a big leaguer, but a guy who's known for running out on the field during rain delays and sliding on his belly on the wet grass.  May 9 was Mother's Day, and it turns out Braden's own mother passed away when he was a senior in high school.  He dedicates all his games to her, offering a little prayer at game's end. More...

Several years ago, I was a member of a pretty remarkable ward book club. We read a variety of titles, not limiting ourselves to just national titles, just genre fiction, just LDS fiction, or even to just fiction. We had some great discussions (and great treats). We read classics and new releases, self-help books and everything in between.

But we had one member who struggled. It seemed that no matter what book we picked to read, she didn't have much to offer by way of discussion. The more emotionally intense a book was, the less she liked it. During the meeting after reading Sue Monk Kidd's The Secret Life of Bees, she revealed what was bothering her: she didn't like to read anything that discussed issues that were upsetting. Kidd's book was about one of her two hardest topics. At the top of her list: Civil Rights and the Holocaust. More...

Note: My new novel Imprints had barely reached store shelves a couple weeks ago when a customer, upon reading the description in the catalog, e-mailed Deseret Book asking them to remove my novel from Deseret Book stores since it was a novel dealing with an "imaginative" or "psychic" element, which in her opinion, though she planned on reading the novel, should not be carried at Deseret Book. This objection prompted me to write an open letter to such readers explaining why everyone who enjoys contemporary sci-fi, fantasy, and paranormal, or anyone who believes all genres have value, should not only buy Imprints (shameless plug), but should contact Deseret Book's publishing division, thank them for publishing a novel in this genre for adults, and urge them to publish and carry more.

Dear Reader:

Thank you for reading my books and for being a supportive reader throughout the years. LDS authors cannot continue to do the work we love without support from readers. I've been told of your objection to Deseret Book carrying Imprints, and though I'm surprised at the objection, particularly by the fact that it was made without first reading the novel, More...

Last week a Deseret News reporters interviewed me about Band of Sisters and the Flat Daddy Project. I've done several interviews recently, but this particular reporter asked something no one had yet.